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Freshman at Life: If You Move Somewhere New, Do You Gain Weight?

I do. Here's why: 1. I'm a secret professional eater. One should never be able to out-eat 6'4", beefy football players (aka my older brothers) at Old Country Buffet. But it happens. Every. Single. Time....

I'm a secret professional eater. One should never be able to out-eat 6'4", beefy football players (aka my older brothers) at Old Country Buffet. But it happens. Every. Single. Time.

I suffer from FOMOOF, Fear Of Missing Out On Food. If I see a new food, I have to try it. In a new place, with new cuisine, this happens. It doesn't matter if I just ate a three-course meal, I'm going to take a bite because what if that was my one chance in life to put that deliciousness into my mouth?! It's just too much of a gamble.

As you can imagine, I've had my share of battles with the scale. And who hasn't had one ever, really?

Let's start with college. By December of my freshman year, I had gained those dreaded, much-discussed 15 pounds. This was actually an impressive feat seeing that Northwestern doesn't start school till the last week in September, none of the weight came from alcohol and I worked out regularly. It turns out that dining halls are too much to handle for someone with FOMOOF: the stir-fry bar, the cereal dispensers dispensing every kind known to man and my Achilles heel, the Oreo milkshake.

A year or two later, I lost the weight I had gained and left to study abroad in Denmark and travel across Europe. Literally everything was new to me, and my FOMOOF kicked into overdrive. How can you say no to fresh bread topped with butter and a sheet of chocolate, my breakfast of champions in Denmark? Needless to say, I gained 25 pounds.

And it sucked. Losing that much weight is tough, but somehow I did it. Then, this Spring, I moved to New York for my internship at SELF, and what would you know, gained a quick 12 lbs in 12 weeks. This was the first time I've worked full-time, and the first time I've been exposed to real New York bagels. So many cream cheeses to sample. (Strawberry! Jalapeno! Who knew?!?!) And seconds to be had.

So now I have to deal with it, again. But you know what? This is what I'm learning. That I need to be responsible for my own chili cheese fry-eating. Or at least own that I'm eating 'em. (And yes, I do, sometimes.)